


By Any Other Name

by DoubleL27



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Established Relationship, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Marriage, Queer Themes, queering the patriarchy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24381892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleL27/pseuds/DoubleL27
Summary: The practice of taking someone else’s name hadn’t even seemed odd until Twyla asked who was changing their name after the wedding, him or David, as she dropped his tea on the counter weeks ago. Patrick had blinked at her and realized he didn’t have an answer. No one had ever asked before. Everyone had always known Rachel was going to become Rachel Brewer.  She’d doodled it on half a dozen notebooks in high school.But with David, well, Patrick hadn’t even thought about it. Now he couldn’t stop.
Relationships: Clint Brewer/Marcy Brewer, Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 64
Kudos: 316





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoreHuman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoreHuman/gifts).



> For MoreHuman who prompted: ⭐️ Patrick tells his parents he’s changing his last name to Rose ⭐️
> 
> I saw this and I couldn't help but write it. In my head, usually they keep their own names, but I can also see Patrick taking David's name and I wanted to go with it. Well, inspiration hit today and suddenly it's two parts. First part up now, second part out tomorrow.
> 
> Unbetaed in the spirit of Jukeboxes, but not as short or quick as it was meant to be. Which is part of my brand.

The practice of taking someone else’s name hadn’t even seemed odd until Twyla asked who was changing their name after the wedding, him or David, as she dropped his tea on the counter weeks ago. Patrick had blinked at her and realized he didn’t have an answer. No one had ever asked before. Everyone had always known Rachel was going to become Rachel Brewer. She’d doodled it on half a dozen notebooks in high school.

But with David, well, Patrick hadn’t even thought about it. Now he couldn’t stop. 

When David entered the store that day, sunglasses on, bag tossed over his shoulder, Patrick had choked his way through the story, ending it with a forced laugh. The whole time, his thumbs took turns running careful paths over the top of his palms.

David froze in the doorway for a moment before pulling off his sunglasses, his face a quicksilver of emotions before forming a carefully neutral grimace. David fluttered over, dropping his bag and sunglasses on the counter. He went to work assuring Patrick with his words and hands that name changes were for straight people who didn’t know any better, part of the patriarchy, and they were two independent grown people who had their own lives and their own names and no need to change anything. Just because Twyla had asked a ridiculous question didn’t mean that they needed to do anything about it. 

David pressed a kiss to Patrick’s forehead, hands stilling on Patrick’s arms, before releasing him and asking about the sales of the body milk compared to the oil-based lotions. Patrick offered a smile but his thumb came back to worry his palm before moving to listen to David’s theories on product placement.

The question nagged him the rest of the day, like a sore tooth that your tongue insisted on worrying despite your best intentions to ignore it. The more he turned it over in his mind, the more the idea that Rachel would take his name was a given seemed silly. Rachel was a doctor and she’d shown him the pages of paperwork she would need to do to convert her license over to a new name as well as everything else. While they were both only children, Patrick had a wide web of cousins while Rachel only had a handful on her mother’s side. There had been fewer Kesslers than there were Brewers in their lives. 

Patrick was sweeping up at the end of the night when he turned to David and asked an entirely different question, taking himself by surprise. It bloomed naturally out of the path Twyla’s question had cut. David’s eyes went wide and round and he almost dropped the body milk in his hands. The more David protested, hands flitting through the air and then over his shoulders, that it was  _ unnecessary _ and a  _ huge step _ and they  _ didn’t need it, _ the more certain Patrick felt. 

There were a million reasons taking David’s name made sense. David’s family was so small compared to his own. The business they own together has David's name on every item, even if Patrick’s felt that he belonged here since he dropped off the business license. The Roses brought him fully into their family when he was dating David, even after the horrible mishap with Rachel. Patrick was first fully himself amongst the Roses in a way he had never been back home. David is his home. More than anything, Patrick wants this family they’re creating together. 

Those were the answers Patrick gave David when he asked why Patrick would change his name. He watched David’s face soften into something close to wonder. The only reason anyone had ever cared about his name before was for a fortune that didn’t exist any longer, which Patrick felt was one more reason he would take David’s name. Patrick would choose David Rose no matter what. 

David made him promise he’d think about it for a week before he made a final decision, but Patrick didn’t need it. He was going to be a Rose, like his husband, like their store. 

Tonight, he will tell his parents about the decision and the paperwork he’d started filling out in preparation. Patrick leaves David with the keys to the store and the car, needing the walk back to the apartment to shake off the jitters. He shuffles his feet, hands jammed deep in his pockets, skittering the pebbles that always found their way onto the sidewalk off in their own directions. The many permutations of the way the conversation could go unfurl in his mind as he walks, following the many directions it could go. Once he reaches the end, he returns to the start of the flow chart he’s been building in his head on the lead up to tonight and taking a different well-worn path. 

He climbs the stairs to his apartment and let himself in. Patrick carefully moves through the process of coming home: putting up his shoes, removing his work clothes and throwing on his favorite sweats and t-shirt. Resisting the urge to put up the breakfast dishes in the drying rack and organize his desk, Patrick sends a quick text and a thumbs up is quickly sent back in return. 

Within moments, his mother’s face, or at least the top half of it, fills the bottom half of Patrick’s screen. His Dad's head pops in over hers. Patrick forces himself to hold the phone steady as they both smile at him. His mom’s eyes were definitely smiling.

“Hello, Sweetheart,” his mother says, warm and welcoming.

Suddenly he’s back in the booth at Cafe Tropical, and he can hear his mom’s voice.  _ You can tell us anything!_ The feeling of her hands reaching out to take his own comes back to him. _You are the only thing in the world that matters to us. And if David makes you happy, then that’s all we care about._

Patrick lets out a sigh, feeling lighter than he has in weeks. “Mom, Dad, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”


	2. Chapter 2

The last plate fits on top of the stack, freshly dried and Clint closes the cabinet door. Maybe next year they can renovate the kitchen like Marcy’s been angling for since Patrick hit high school. Something about the outdated nature of the cabinets and formica countertops keeps featuring in her arguments. Really, Clint can’t help but feel that it has more to do with her twenty year obsession with HGTV than anything actual issues with the kitchen. 

“Honey, Patrick wants to talk to us,” Marcy’s voice calls from the living room. 

The Jays game can wait the length of a phone call, especially if their son wants to talk during the start. “Well, we’ve got the time.” The game would record anyway. Patrick set it up to auto-record when they first got the box. 

Clint runs the dish towel over the speckled gray countertops one last time before hanging it carefully over the oven handle and padding out to the living room where Marcy is posted on the couch. Patrick’s face is already on the screen, fresh haircut and seated on his own couch. 

“Hello, Sweetheart,” Marcy greets their son. 

Patrick lets out a breath. “Mom, Dad, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Over the years, Clint has realized that the more space you give Patrick to talk, the more you get. Some of their best talks were when he could convince his son that they weren’t even actually talking, but doing something, anything. The longest conversations he’s had with Patrick have been when they’ve been out tossing a ball, shooting pucks, clearing the yard. It’s harder to have a mutual task to focus on when Patrick now lives close to a thousand kilometers away instead of under ten.

The sound of a tapping pen, a familiar noise from countless school nights, comes through as Patrick says, “So, uh, some things came up as questions leading up to the wedding, and I,” Patrick lets out a breathy laugh, the nervous one he’s had since he was around twelve. “I need you both to know how much I love you. I’m so lucky to have you as my parents.”

“We’re lucky to have you as a son,” Clint answers, rubbing his hands over Marcy’s shoulders from where he’s standing behind the couch. “But I don’t think that’s why you’re calling during a Thursday night Jay’s game.”

Patrick laughs uneasy again, “No.” He exhales, and his voice is steady and sure when he says, “No. I wanted to tell you that I’ve decided that I’m going to take David’s name when we’re married. I’m going to be Patrick Rose.”

Clint tries to wrap his mind around a name he’d never thought to hear. The ground underneath his feet shifts a little, reminding him of when Johnny Rose let it slip that he was dating David. This one feels suspiciously like loss. The way he thought things were, or how they were going to be, aren’t real. Patrick begins going through his carefully thought out reasons: the store that belongs to both of them already shares David’s name, the lack of family David has, the fact that David and he are going to be a family.

Truth is, Clint supposes, that when you hold your son in your hands for the first time, you never expect him to change his name. His own father had clapped Clint on the shoulder and been very proud to have another boy to carry on the Brewer family name. He and his father had stood there staring down at the red-faced child in his arms. Clint felt terror run through him while Patrick was tasting his new world with careful sips. He’d reminded himself that his parents had raised five children to adulthood, so he and Marcy could handle this one.

They’ve kept every one of Patrick’s team jerseys from every sport he’s ever played. Brewer is emblazoned on the back of each and every one over some permutation of the number 7. Marcy has joked for years she should just turn every last part of them into a quilt for him to keep but has never done it. Would he even want that now? All the trophies are etched with Brewer as well. 

“I mean, it’s not like Rachel would have been any less a Kessler if she became a Brewer, too,” Patrick argues into the silence, a rare mention of his former fiancee that had been like a daughter to them. “I’m not any less a Brewer because I’m taking David’s name. I...No one else has ever chosen David.” Patrick pauses, looking somewhere past both of them, eyes bright. “Not really. But I have.”

Patrick begins describing how comfortable David has become since their engagement, how certain. Patrick wants to honor that certainty. “Asking David to marry me was the easiest decision of my life, and so is my choosing to be fully a family this way.”

Marcy has let a free hand float up to squeeze his own and Clint focuses her bright smile in the small picture in the corner. “That’s wonderful, Patrick.”

Patrick’s brows drop slightly. “I don’t want you to think that I don’t…”

“Oh, honey, we know that you love us,” Marcy assures, bubbling over with care. 

And they do. Patrick has already asked him to be his best man. Clint has tried to talk Patrick into someone closer to his own age, but Patrick cited avoiding fights amongst the cousins and not having another person he respected more standing up besides him. There had been some rambling about David insisting on even numbers and how they needed to be balanced at one each, but ultimately that he wouldn’t have wanted anyone else. 

Clint is stuck remembering the party his sister Linda threw when her divorce was final, triumphantly changing her name back to her own.  _ Never wanted to change it in the first place. The kids are old enough now that it doesn’t matter.  _ Considering the family had never particularly warmed to Carl, Clint didn’t think any of them were disappointed. 

Clint fully means to say congratulations. Instead, he says, “You know, no one has to change their name, though. Aunt Linda only did it for the kids.” 

Marcy’s nails bite into his hand and she’s giving him that look that she perfected years ago with her eyebrow arched. Patrick’s free hand stops fiddling the pen and he brings it up to scratch at the back of his skull. Patrick's voice turns stubborn and sure. “Oh, I _know._ I just…” 

Patrick softly nibbles at his bottom lip, a smile hovering at the edges. “It’s silly, but when I was a kid, I loved getting cards that were addressed to The Brewers, all three of us, like the sign you have hanging by the front door. There’s a sense of-of unity.” 

The pen clatters to the table as Patrick shakes his head, eyes bright. “I know neither of us has to change our names to be a family. David’s covered that territory pretty well at this point. I guess I want to have that feeling of-of pride when someone uses one name to encompass both of us. It doesn’t matter that we’re not having kids. You don’t need kids to have a family. The store is kind of like our kid, to be honest and I think I can wear David down on a dog.”

Marcy squeezes at his hand again, without nails this time, and Clint squeezes her shoulder in return. They’ve spent most of Patrick’s life trying to be grateful that they were graced with one child, even if there wouldn’t be any more. They never wanted Patrick to feel that he isn’t enough just as he is and Clint worries that they’ve failed at that more times than they knew with the ways Patrick carefully tries to minimize any disappointment they may feel over his choices. He’s not sure what to do about it though. 

“There’s actually-” Patrick’s smile blooms in full. ”There’s a house. It’s not on the market yet, but it’s the only house that David’s ever actually expressed interest in around here. I-I had dropped off my business card a while ago just in case they ever planned to sell, and they called. I want to be able to put our name on the house.”

  
It’s not silly. The memory of hanging their flagstone sign Marcy’s cousin had made as a wedding present outside of their first house, exactly where Marcy wanted it, is still fresh. She’d slipped under his arm, wrapping herself around him, her head coming to rest on his chest. Clint slides his arm down and across Marcy’s chest to pull her closer.

Clint takes a moment to clear his throat, worried it might crack if he doesn’t. “That makes perfect sense, Patrick. It’s not silly at all.”

When it’s laid bare, it makes perfect sense to Clint. The slight prick of hurt is smoothed out by how happy Patrick clearly is. 

“Good. Good.” Patrick looks down and lets out a heavy breath that’s just shy of a laugh. “I don’t know why I was worried.”

Marcy pulls Clint’s hand from her collarbone and lifts it to her lips, pressing a warm kiss to his palm before sighing herself. “Oh, my sweet boy, we’re so happy for you. We hope you know that. You and David are going to have such a lovely life together.”

Those wide eyes that have been looking up at him since Patrick was a baby blink twice, rapidly. “I hope so. I hope we’ll be just as happy as the two of you have been.”

The memory of David Rose coming to their motel room the afternoon of Patrick’s birthday with a gift basket and full intent to smooth things over is still fresh. In that short conversation, David’s love for Patrick had been apparent. When he and Marcy had shown up for the surprise party, David had been flitting around the space, introducing them around and checking in with nearly everyone to ensure that everything was perfect. 

“I cannot imagine you won’t be,” Clint promises. 

  
In a few weeks, they’ll be back in Schitt’s Creek, to watch their son get married to someone who loves him. It may not be exactly how he pictured everything when Patrick was small, but Clint knew he couldn’t have imagined his son this happy if he had tried. In all the years Patrick was with Rachel, Clint cannot pull up a memory of Patrick being so sure, so excited. . Patrick signs off with promises to text during the game and reminders about suit pick up.

Clint presses a kiss to Marcy's temple before coming around to sit next to her on the couch. Rather than turn on the TV, he pulls her more fully into his arms, pressing another kiss to her face. "You think your cousin still makes those signs?"

Marcy's hand runs in soothing strokes over his chest and she looks up at him with bright eyes. "Oh, honey, you can count on it. A flagstone sign is all I've ever seen Suzie gift a couple at weddings."

Clint leans down and kisses his wife of thirty-five years. It feels like only yesterday they were the ones getting married. They can't possibly have a child old enough to get married or buy a house, except that they do. Marcy rests her head against his chest when she pulls away. Clint picks up the remote to the TV as he strokes her arm. "Well, we best make sure she puts the right name on the front."


End file.
